Have you ever wondered why most zippers have the letters YKK on them? Here's the scoop.
When you work in retail, especially in textiles and clothing, there are always brands you love, and others, not so much. It can seem that the way to succeed in the clothing business is to create something that everyone uses and then generate as much brand recognition as possible in order to create a product that appeals to your target audience.
But, what happens when you create a great product that everyone uses and you don't find it necessary to market your brand? Well, if you are lucky, you'll end up with a product like the YKK zipper.
If you look at the items you have at home that have zippers on them, the odds are good that the zipper pull will have the letters YKK on them. So why do they all have this marking?
YKK stands for Yoshida Kogyo Kabushikikaisha, the name of the business founded in 1934 by Tadao Yoshida. His company, now known in America as Yoshida Industries Limited, is the leading maker of zippers. In fact, they are so good at making zippers that about 90 percent of all zippers are made at a Yoshida factory.
Yoshida Industries has 206 facilities spread over 52 countries. Not only do they make zippers, but they also make the machines that make zippers, which, by the way, is a great business plan. If you own all the machines that make a certain product, it isn't likely that someone else will be able to make the product better or easier than you do.
Their largest factory is located in Macon, Georgia and it makes over 7 million zippers each day. The Yoshida company started with a strong corporate culture, known as the “Cycle of Goodness”. It is basically the belief that you prosper when you create a benefit to others. By making the best quality zippers possible, the are able to provide a benefit to manufacturers who use zippers in their products and give the benefit of sturdy zippers that last to the customers. These benefits then cycle back to the company by way of repeat sales, referrals and a large demand for the zippers.
It seems like that philosophy has taken Mr. Yoshida's little zipper company right to the top. People wear his product everyday, and don't even realize it. What's more, even if your favorite jacket doesn't have a YKK zipper, it's very likely that they made the machine that created the zipper, or made the hardware and materials that went into the zipper manufacturing.
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Do you use YKK zippers? Let me know in the comments.
By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer for RetailGigsBlog. Along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.
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